Liar, Lunatic, Lord – an apologetic revisited

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

One of the most startling phrases at the beginning of John’s Gospel is this : ‘The Word was God’. John describes Jesus as the definitive Word of God, while also actually being the divine being Himself. How can this be?

Some have said that this phrase conveys only that Jesus was godly or some sort of divine light bearer. However, the sense of the original language does not indicate this.  There is actually a different word (theios) to convey the idea of divinity in a descriptive or adjectival sense as opposed to the word used here (theos).

No, here John gives us the idea that there two distinct persons known as God and the Word, yet they share the same being or substance. A mystery is unveiled that Jesus is a divine being. John says: “the Word was God.”

But this is where many of us falter. We like Jesus’ teaching. It is instructive and helpful for living a moral and loving life. Most of us also like Jesus as a person, aside from some of His eccentricities and the awful death He died. Yet we find it hard to swallow the statement: “the Word – Jesus – is God.”

Paul writes of Jesus in Colossians 1:19: “God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him.” In Jesus, we encounter the very fullness of God.

C. S. Lewis once argued that Jesus was one of three things:

1. Liar: That is, Jesus intentionally deceived people into believing that He was God when He was actually just a man like any other. In this case Jesus is unreliable and should be dismissed.
2. Lunatic: That is, Jesus was deluded or mentally unstable in some way that made Him think that He was God when He was actually just a man like any other. In this case, once again, Jesus is unreliable and should be dismissed.
3. Lord: Alternatively, Jesus truly was who He said He was – God incarnate in the flesh. In this case, Jesus should be given full attention and serious consideration.

Lewis’ argument is a powerful one that should be read and considered. Yet in our contemporary time some have pointed out that perhaps Jesus never claimed to be God Himself but was made into some sort of God by His followers. Perhaps Jesus was simply a great teacher who was transformed through verbal and literary invention into some sort of God by those who followed Him. If this was the case, then Lewis’ argument is ineffective because it focuses on Jesus and not His followers. In this case, it is not Jesus but rather His followers who were either liars or lunatics. This is a very important assessment and questioning of the Gospels that should not be dismissed out of hand but addressed thoughtfully.

We can respond to this question in two simple ways:

1. If Jesus’ followers were liars, it is odd that they risked their lives with no apparent sense of gain for the sake of such a colossal lie. There were no royalties they would gain from the book or movie rights to Jesus’ life story. They would not be helped in advancing socially in any way from this. In reality, aside from Judas – who killed himself with grief over his betrayal of Jesus – and the Apostle John – who apparently lived a long natural life, all of Jesus’ closest followers were killed for their beliefs. The idea that Jesus was God flew in the face of their contemporary society and was in direct conflict with the cult of the Emperor in which Caesar was viewed as God. With only death as gain, why would these followers tell such a bald-faced lie? Perhaps it was because they were not liars at all. But maybe they were lunatics.
2. If Jesus’ followers were lunatics, it seems odd that such deluded or mentally unbalanced people could have launched a worldwide movement with no political clout or worldly authority. These unknown people from a backwater colony of the Roman Empire helped to unveil a new religious ideology that completely changed the face of the Roman Empire within a few hundred years and altered the course of human history forever. Perhaps these first followers were not lunatics, either.

Maybe, just maybe, these followers actually represented Jesus’ teaching accurately. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus actually is who they said He was – God breaking in to human existence and history. Maybe, just maybe, Christianity is not a sociological phenomenon that can be scientifically explained, but is actually something entirely new brought to birth as the very Spirit of the Living God swept across the face of this earth alongside of those early followers.

Perhaps Jesus truly is the Lord because “the Word was God,” as John tells us right here at the beginning of his Gospel. This Christmas, consider Jesus as God because He may just be the most important person not only in your life but in the entire created universe.